On my OS X 10.9.5 system I'm seeing Dropbox consume CPU whenever anything on the file system changes, regardless of whether the changed files or folders are in the Dropbox synced folders. The CPU usage is proportionate to the rate of file system changes. When I'm running an installer that takes a long time and has high disk activity (e.g. installing a documenation update in XCode), then the Dropbox CPU usage goes through the roof and I see the Dropbox sync status change from 'up to date' to 'indexing'. For less sustained activities with less intensive file system changes, I see Dropbox just popup briefly in the list of top CPU consumers -- but it shouldn't be showing up at all (or certainly not at double digit CPU use and not for the duration of the file system activity. My guess is that Dropbox is simply listening for file system events and reacting to each one as if it might be change in a synced file or folder. It should be ignoring fsevents that are for items outside the Dropbox folders -- but it seems not to be the case. :-( :-( I'm on 3.0.3, but have been seeing this problem since the 2.* days. -- Dave Hein

I don't have any symlinks in the folder. I have very few files (less than 1000). Note: I've reported this before and gotten similar responses -- basically, the Dropbox support folks don't believe me. I'm giving up. My workaround now is simply to avoid running Dropbox at startup and to only start it when I want to sync and then keep it stopped otherwise. Eventually I'll move my Dropbox into some other cloud sharing/syncing system and stop using Dropbox entirely.

My iMac is always running at least Google Chrome, Apple Mail, Google Drive and DropBox but Activity Monitor shows DropBox consuming more CPU time than any other app and about 10x as much as Google Drive. I'm losing faith too!

I have a 2015 MacBook Pro with a 2.8GHZ processor that turbo boosts to 4.0GHZ, 500GB of flash storage and 16GB of RAM. The DROPBOX CLIENT IS CRUSHING MY MACHINE!!!! 150% of my CPU? That is obscene. That should never come to be. I am a software developer and know this is poor coding. You should be using a queuing structure or more manageable work units. I am currently a paying client of Dropbox and syncing is a critical part of cloud storage. There are too many competitors in the market for this to be even remotely acceptable.

I have the same problem, dropbox is simply eating most of my CPU usage all the time. I have running OS X, 4GM Ram, i7 (DropBox Team, 35,280 files). I re-install dropbox and re-installed my Mac, and nothing improved. What is bothering me more, that even my files are "up-to-date" DropBox's CPU usage is 20-40%.

I have the same issue: Every time I make any operations which modify a lot files anywhere outside the Dropbox directory Dropbox just consumes 100% CPU. I can reproduce this issue easily by just extracting a very large tar file (e.g. the Linux kernel sources) somewhere outside the Dropbox directory: Even with a completely empty Dropbox directory (that obviously contain no symlinks) I get a very high CPU use of the Dropbox process even though not a single file in the Dropbox directory was modified. I attached DTrace to the Dropbox process and can see it making thousands of system calls per second when I extract the tar file somewhere outside the Dropbox directory: Dear Dropbox developers, are you *sure* you're not listening to *all* filesystem events which happen in my user's directory? Because to me it completely looks like that and is the reason I get such a high CPU use when I make heavy filesystem operation which shouldn't bother Dropbox at all.

(OS X) Dropbox consuming a lot of CPU whenever any file or folder is changed anywhere

Mark B.87
New member | Level 1
10 years ago
I keep installing the latest version of Dropbox on my 2011 13" Macbook Air (4GB RAM), hoping that Dropbox will fix the problem. In my case, Dropbox will be idle (i.e. not synching) and still use nearly 100% of CPU resources. When it is synching, it's much higher! The end result is that my fan is always on - until I simply quit Dropbox. But that defeats the point of the product, now doesn't it ... :-)

Has anyone on this thread found a solution or better alternative?
Mark B.87
New member | Level 1
10 years ago
John H.

thanks for reminding me about Google Drive. I played with my corporate Office365 account bit today and still found OneDrive to be unusable. I'll look into Google Drive again. I did buy more space recently for photos on iCould. I just wish Dropbox would work without brining my Macbook to its knees.

Dave H.,

great tip on using Google Drive with OS X. I'll need to pay attention to my Wifi and Dropbox's use of resources. Basically, I just want "set it and forget it" access to my files online - in addition to my backups in CrashPlan and Time Machine.

Thanks,

Mark
dustin h.5
New member | Level 1
10 years ago
I5 2.8 Mhrz
12Gb Ram
Win 7 & Mac Os

Changing my computers power profile plans doesn't help.
Drop box is using up at least 50% of my cpu load and setting my CPU clock to max even when I set it to powersaver!!

Going to have to stop using drop box if this continues.
Patrick M.42
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
Seems like a lot of people on OSX here, but I'm having the same issue on Windows.

I have approx. 66k files (I am using it to synchronize my Atom config folder, so lots of very small config and code files).

Every now and then a few files get changed (say 10 in total, perhaps 7kb each), and Dropbox starts ramping up my i7 CPU for hours, the fan nearly achieving lift-off from the table, finishing its sync eventually after 2 hours in my most recent experience.

I don't understand how syncing a handful of files, a few kb in size, can cause such mayham on a system.

I'm inclined to go back to Google Drive over this. It was very efficient in its usage of resources and synced files more readily and intuitively. I have no clue what the Dropbox client is trying to do most of the time. Clearly not just syncing my files.

Anybody know of any movement on this front from other sources maybe?
Andrew C.5
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
Exactly the same problem for me, file copies elsewhere in file structure and up goes Dropbox to 100% cpu. A problem with long transfers, and presumably in the background all the time. Maybe it's a good sign that this weak behaviour seems so antiquated now.
Patrick M.42
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
So I re-installed Google Drive instead, which had a couple of GB on it. And it synced completely within 20mins.

Dropbox, meanwhile, hasn't finished syncing a few MB since yesterday afternoon, all the while trying via the fan to get my laptop airbourne.
Ruslan M.
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
Same here, over 180% if CPU usage, most energy impacting app. it takes hours to update my file list. This is ridiculous!
Xavi E.1
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
Same problem here, it's always been like this... When Dropbox starts going 100% CPU while doing some work I just quit it and open it again when I'm AFK.

Macbook Air, OSX 10.10.5 (Yosemite)
Laureline
Community Manager
9 years ago
Hi Diello,

Did you followed the advice that Ed sent earlier?

There can be very different causes for a CPU issue.

If you did, I would recommend you to write to the support team here:

https://www.dropbox.com/support

They will be more than happy to look into your issue, and try to find a reason why Dropbox is using so much CPU on your computer :)
Gordon Q.
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
I have the same kind of issue. As soon as Dropbox starts syncing, whether it be one file or 100, my iMac bogs down and my disk starts howling. It's like Dropbox is the Soup Nazi of apps – "No processing for you!" It feels like a scheduler problem to me. I wish Apple or Dropbox would give me the ability to limit Dropbox to a capped slice of processor and disk usage. Dropbox could use idle resources when available, but when other functions need resources, Dropbox is backed off to it's cap. You know, state of the art 1970s computing.